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UnaffiliatedOpinion t1_j68vyao wrote

Reply to comment by KentuckYSnow in Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro loosens his predecessor’s notoriously strict gift ban for top officials by CobBasey

> Shapiro clarified that... that commonwealth employees should feel comfortable “getting a cup of coffee” with their constituents.

Zero-tolerance policies don't work anywhere else*, so why would we expect them to work here? If the policy is really so strict that accepting a $1 bottle of water is against the rules, I would certainly bet that many employees were looking the other way. That leads to a culture where "everyone is doing it" and nothing gets reported because everyone has broken the rule at one point or another. I would expect it to be more effective to carve out reasonable limits with strict reporting requirements. That way, we have some visibility into who's buying Harrisburg's lunches, while having a line in the sand where people might actually be willing to blow the whistle if they see someone go over the limit or not reporting.

  • (yes, I edited out the part of Shapiro's quote where he says 'zero tolerance', because clearly there is up to $36 worth of tolerance)
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TheMayorMikeJackson t1_j69a4w9 wrote

Actually people weren’t doing it. We couldn’t have coffee or doughnuts in early morning large meetings if penndot was attending cause of these rules

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KentuckYSnow t1_j6bgfrc wrote

By nothing I mean someone shouldn't pay for your entire meal directly, if you're at aeeting and they just have coffee and donuts or what we that's for everyone and you just take a serving that's different than someone buying you dinner. And offering someone a water isn't buying in influence, it's just being courteous. Just saying that they shouldn't purchase for a state employee anything specifically, but common sense would say that if there's something so immaterial as a donut or a bottle of water that they can take it, but if someone wants to buy an entire meal, the state employee can pay for it themselves.

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